


Phantom Bride

by DrSwiss



Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: Bae Ending, Depression, F/F, Fluff, Girls Kissing, Hurt, Hurt/Comfort, Kissing, Love, Making Out, Mental Health Issues, Mental Instability, Overthinking, Partnership, Slice of Life, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-31
Updated: 2019-01-31
Packaged: 2019-10-19 11:52:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17600843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DrSwiss/pseuds/DrSwiss
Summary: They had left Arcadia Bay behind. They had started a new life. Life was good, calm and exciting in its own way, seemingly. Chloe had Max. Max had Chloe. What could possibly disturb their newfound fairy tale?You don't have to go far to find your worst enemy....and what happened to the sandwich?





	Phantom Bride

“Whatcha doin’?”

The clacking of keyboard keys continued. Words over words appeared on the screen, just to be erased again. Blank space reigned, the rebellion attempting to topple the tyranny was quelled at every uprising, sentenced to death by backspace. The faux-queen of words sighed, burying her face in one hand, frustrated. 

Chloe rolled her eyes. Max would get too absorbed when she forced articles out of herself. She was a photographer at heart and by trade, but pictures alone didn’t pay too well. Newspapers and magazines preferred written word surrounding the pretty shots if they were to be her customers. She tried too hard in Chloe’s eyes, but then she was bringing a good part of their combined paycheck in, so she had chosen to not talk her out of the craze.

Now was the time for a break though, Chloe judged. A finger dug its way underneath the cushion and Max’s ear. The victim froze, stiffening up for a blink of the eye before her hand sprung to the headphones, tearing them off in a heartbeat. She spun around with big, startled eyes. The finger had long escaped the crime scene and something on the ceiling had caught Chloe’s fascination all of a sudden.

Max’s confused gaze lingered a moment on Chloe’s horrible display of innocence before her head dropped, hiding a defeated smile. Elbow propped up on the desk, Max’s wrist dropped limp, relaxing, the headphones only held by the fingers, dangling a bit from the short drop. Chloe’s eyes narrowed and wandered to the sounds they released, or where she assumed the air moving them would be. What must have amounted to the cheesiest indie rock from this side of the planet blared into the silence between them. Judgingly, she looked at Max, who in turn tilted her head, as if asking her if she had something smart to say. They stared at each other, unmoving, relentless, until the song ended. Chloe rolled her eyes again. The tune wasn’t so bad after all, she had to admit, but no amount of scorching hellfire or suddenly friendly smiling Maxes could make her actually show it, at least she claimed to herself. Instead, she grabbed Max’s shoulder and gently squeezed it.

“Do you need something?” Max asked. The hand wandered over her collarbone to her face, stroking it lightly with its back. Chloe had long decided to spend her life attached to this soothing, freckled poison in the form of a hipster. Much better than being trapped in a void, somewhere nobody, not even you yourself know where you are. Somewhere Chloe had originally been designed to end up, alone, unreachable, disconnected. Wandering through nothing, the same as not being, existing in the first place, until Max had ruled that fate could choke on a fat one this time. Max, her heroine, in all possible ways.

Max...

Oh right, she had actually interrupted her with a less mind-twisting purpose.

“No, but you looked to me like _you_ do.” Max put down the headphones and scrunched up her brow, quizzically, until Chloe produced a large bottle of dark liquid from under her arm, and a plate with two sandwiches of which one was still untouched. Max opened her mouth in surprise. “Don’t look so greedy!” Chloe grabbed the one with a piece bitten out of it already. “That one’s mine!”

“Aw, and I thought you’d really treat me.”

Chloe had stuffed almost all of it between her cheeks already. “I can take the plate back again!” she threatened, but Max started giggling. Chloe was sure Max thought something along the lines of who the real greedy one was, but she refused to act on it. Instead she fueled the fire in Max’s glee by making silly mumbling sounds while chewing, _totally_ not exaggerating the scandalised look on her face. The sandwich died a quick death to devouring. 

“I saw you were still gnawing on that article, so I figured you’d want to munch on something real for a change.” She pushed her fingers right below Max’s neck and started circling. Max turned forward again, relaxing her back and sighed. “And you gotta stay hydrated. I haven’t seen you get up from this chair for hours now.”

Max tilted her head up until she could catch a glimpse of Chloe again. “Since when did you turn into mom material?” She asked, getting promptly shoved, startled into holding onto the desk. It wasn’t a harsh shove, but disappointment settled onto her when the hand wouldn’t come back to squeeze her tensed spots. She turned around with a pout.

“Oh, _sorry_ your girlfriend feels like taking care of you once in her life!” Chloe’s pouted herself with folded arms. She stared, a battle of pouts. Chloe was determined to show Max exactly how _hurt_ she was, but the corners of her mouth betrayed her like the traitors they were. Involuntarily she reached behind her head with one hand, scratching it under her hair, giving in on the fight. Max winked at her. Chloe convinced herself against better judgement that Max meant her hairstyle. Absolutely plausible! Confidence comes from faking it after all, and thoughts were _totally_ coherent all the time.

She smiled softly. Somebody else, somebody dear and now lost to the void had prompted Chloe to dye her hair blue. Then… after… No! Not now. Chloe hoped to abandon the thought by finishing it on a simple note. Max liked the style, so Chloe had kept it.

That was the least she could do after Max had decided to keep _her_ , and blow a town to dust in exchange.

Why do rain clouds appear when you need the blue sky the most?

“Thank you, Chlobear,” Max said, warmly like a fire on a cold night.

Chloe’s cheeks started upsetting her, because even though she couldn’t see them, she knew the bastards were glowing bright red. All the willing, all the tenacity she had poised herself with vanished, leaving behind a vacuum, which sucked in an unbearable nervousness. She had to look away. Her heart was beating too fast, thumping too hard, and all it took was this damn hipster to just… be, exist.

They could exist together.

She had been chosen.

So blissfully depressing.

Reality struck back with a weight clamped to her chest, unexpectedly external however. Something had latched onto her and squeezed her, relentlessly. Max had gotten up and come close. Time had passed, frightening Chloe. Had she been out cold? No, she was still standing on both feet. Where did the lapse come from? What had happened? Chloe freaked out, the sensation of liquid running down her face not calming her mind at all.

Tears weren’t part of the happy-evening-plan.

“You’re thinking about it,” Max said, head pressed to Chloe’s neck. There was no question in the statement. Max knew Chloe very well, so well that Chloe doubted she knew herself at all. The human condition must be silly if you think about it, where you can see like your eyes do, hear like your ears do, touch like your skin does and feel like your heart bleeds, but still it takes somebody completely detached from your senses to know what _your_ truth is.

She sniffled, once, twice, then completed the hug with her own arms, squeezing Max tightly. Chloe confirmed Max’s observation with no words, just a grunt. Max was here, here for her.

_She wouldn’t leave, would she? No, that makes no sense. Not after all she did._ Chloe thought, a little unsettled by her imagination.

Getting out of sync with herself, smashing setting boundaries in her head, that’s what Chloe used pot for, but to reap something useful from the state needed keen senses, something the haze and smoke covered up as well. No drug existed to provide both, no dissociation ever provided what it promised. She would need to be someone else for a while to understand herself, but that wasn’t possible.

Just like time travel...

“You’re the world to me,” Max said. She looked up to Chloe and as soon as she did that, all the demons in Chloe’s head went away, at least out of sight. “I wouldn’t make it for very long if I abandoned you,” she added.

The demons had left a broken dam behind, one that Chloe had to repair by herself sometime. However, Max’s presence numbed her, took the pain away. Tears could flood the sore spots in her soul without the salt stinging them sharply now. Instead, they felt like camomile, soothing, mending.

”I chose you because I was selfish, and there is nothing for me to regret, never will be.”

Max had such a beautiful face, whether she said such words or not. 

“Who else will make me a sandwich so completely out of the blue?”

Chloe laughed, liberating herself from the venom in her mind for the moment. She reached down to kiss Max’s forehead. Her face must have been soaking wet, but Max didn’t show any displeasure. 

“I don’t deserve you at all...”

A quick hand across Chloe’s mouth stopped any further words. “Don’t say that! Such bullshit only comes true if you keep saying it.” A frown, and not a playful one, creased Max’s face. “The more you say it, the more you believe in it, and that’s just bad!” She took the hand away.

Rationally - Hell, the rational world would be so easy and great without humans - Chloe couldn’t disagree with Max. Saying bad things about yourself inches them towards your default mindset, step by step, every time you do it. How do you explain the soothing feeling of bashing yourself? How do you describe that flogging your mind with a barbed whip leaves behind a wound which immediately starts healing? It heals so strongly, so thorough, it intoxicates you, taking off the edge, the immediate remedy for depression, for a little while.

Chloe opened her mouth, but Max put a finger back on it, silencing her again. She must have read her mind, one way or the other.

“I said it before, we can look for a therapist if you want...”

“No therapist! Please!” Chloe interrupted, almost spitting the finger off her mouth. “I don’t need a sticker on my forehead telling me and everybody else that I’m crazy, no matter how mushy they’re going to phrase it!” Her mood took a nosedive again. “I know I’m crazy even without that drama.”

All her body, all her mind - and Max - agreed that Chloe needed help, but some goblin in a shitty corner of her consciousness kept reminding her that therapists were humans. Humans judged. Judgement is the absence of love, and she couldn’t bear the thought of somebody sitting there analysing her, thinking they knew her better than she did. Only Max was allowed to best her on these grounds. The other candidate for the spot… Chloe brought her hands to her eyes and rubbed them wildly, almost violently, out of anger and madness, not because of tears. Too many pictures she wasn’t braced to handle poured in, and she needed to catch them, _unsee_ them before they infested the deeper levels of her mind.

A patient, constant rub on her back kept her rooted in reality at least. Her brain wasn’t done with the overthinking though.

What if the therapist would make it worse? Sure, Chloe wasn’t doing too well right now, but at least she could look at Max and find an inkling of motivation to function at least a little bit. Would a non-functioning person notice that somebody close was overworking themselves? Even if they did, would they care? The lone pillar of inner peace supported all of Chloe’s life right now. How irresponsible would it be to endanger the fragile fellow? Chloe would trade a cup of fluoric acid down her throat for the thoughts coming out of her mind at lightning speed anytime.

Funny, how in a sense that’s how some doctors treat mental issues.

Max sighed, and lead Chloe to their couch. Olive green, fluffy cushions and older than earth itself, but after some thorough cleaning it had turned out to be a real bargain for their little apartment. Chloe expected another talk as they sat down. Her mind was too tired and pained to protest. She would be saying stuff that couldn’t reasonably be argued with and Chloe would need some time, maybe a drink, or a joint, or both to process it before feeling shattered and dissolved, but healing. Only because Max wouldn’t leave her alone in such a time, and only because it was Max in the first place Chloe had accepted her upcoming fate begrudgingly. Still, the next hours wouldn’t exactly be a trip to an amusement park.

But then Max pushed her across the seats and laid down on top of her. She gave Chloe a quick kiss, soft and sweet, like cinnamon, then looked at her.

Chloe had braced herself for barbed wire to her soul, not soothing honey.

“Change of plans,” Max said, “I’m glad you’re crazy!” 

_What?_

“Yes, I really do, and I’m mega jelly that you are!” 

Chloe’s face probed all hues of confusion, but none of them expressed how she felt quite right. The writers of her fate didn’t seem to follow logic at all.

At least not the one she perceived as rational.

Max laughed, kissed Chloe again, a little more thoroughly, but with her mouth still closed. “You’re more than just this disgustingly overused metaphor of spice in my life. You’re a treasure box with so many surprises in it, and I love every single one of them. The crazier, the more exciting.” Glee pulsated through Max’s giggles, through her hands as they smoothed the angry band shirt over Chloe’s chest, in the blue eyes that spelled _beautiful_ in a language that could neither be spoken, nor written, just painted. “I love excitement!” she said, dropping another quick kiss.

Her mood was contagious enough to make Chloe laugh from her belly, as good as she could at least. A Max-shaped weight was pushing down on it. 

“You’re making bullshit up as you go, like a...” Chloe thought it an excellent idea to match Max’s words with smarts of her own, “like… a bull. Y’know? A bull bullshitting their shit as they go…” Regret set in. “Oh my god what am I doing...?”

Max was fighting for air in between snorts and shouts of laughter. “Who is making up bullshit now?” she asked, then she squealed in surprise.

While Max had become a freelance journalist, something that was at least remotely connected to photography, Chloe had started working in a garage. That already put her at a considerable strength advantage, one she had just used to swap their places on the dingy couch in one swoop.

She grabbed Max’s wrists and demanded an even more thorough kiss from her. One Max appeared to be even more eager to give, or rather receive. Chloe was taking the wheel now. She wouldn’t be teased any longer. She was done doing brain work, thinking and that shit. She needed doing, and there was only one option she could do on this couch.

Chloe took a deep breath through her nose, inhaling all the sweat and pheromones she could get. Mesmerised, _high_ on her, amongst other things, she wrestled with Max’s tongue, though it wasn’t actual wrestling as much as trying to reach, taste, probe all the sweet spots they knew and discovered. Chloe tore her eyes open in surprise when something pushed at the back of her head. She had been too distracted to notice her grip on Max’s wrists fading. The rascal smiled under her lips, but didn’t stop. Chloe rolled her eyes - how often can you roll your eyes in one evening? - and pulled her mind back to the kiss. Liberation, one more wave, one more ride, they collided and fought, not to best the other, but to take the lead on the mutual journey. 

Max gave in. Chloe was able to have her way now, grabbing her cheeks, gently, softly. The moment their fight ended, the tone changed. Silken strokes, tender touches, the colours showering down their senses gained an extra dimension. Like every time, Like all the times before.

The true therapy happened right here, right now.

Closed lips remained in touch, not leaving, not just yet. Max’s hands slid down from the back of Chloe’s head to her cheeks and stroked them with her thumbs. One last needy peck, then their foreheads touched, their gazes connected. Something magical laid in the air between them, a modern fairytale, so identical to all the other ones invisibly happening around them, but with a secret version of identity, oneness.

They were one, existed as one.

A current electrified Chloe’s gut, making her body shake. For a second, concern threatened to grow on Max’s face, but a smile on Chloe’s eradicated the bad seed. She could ride the satisfaction until time would go on strike, refuse to move on. Then they would be trapped here for an eternity, in their very own void, together as ghosts, witnesses of their own bliss.

“All I want from you is that you feel at peace with yourself,” Max said, playing with Chloe’s hair, “not today, not tomorrow, just one day. And that you let me help you with that, in any way _you_ deem to be good. Okay?”

Chloe didn’t need to answer, Max wouldn’t accept the other option anyway, and so she flicked her nose across Max’s, reaping a bright giggle. Still, she nodded twice with a confirming noise on the deal, before pulling her head back, putting it to rest on Max’s chest. Her eyelids were heavy, tired, but not the bad kind of tired from before.

_She is so warm._

Max’s heartbeat thumped into Chloe’s ear, fast, still agitated from their kiss, but slowed down progressively, relaxing in the afterglow they shared. Chloe put two fingers across Max’s mouth, preemptively. She wanted to say something Max would most likely try to interrupt. As she started speaking the fingers got promptly kissed, throwing her out of her rhythm. She made a questioning sound, to which Max just shrugged smugly. Chloe laughed. The girl must have a screw loose herself, a different one than Chloe, but screw is screw. Before her head would go down paths she couldn’t be responsible for anymore she tried speaking again.

“I still don’t know how I deserve you, but I don’t want to be apart from you any longer, ever,” she lifted her fingers off Max’s mouth, but the hand got grabbed before Chloe could pull it away completely. She stroked various spots on Chloe’s palm, good spots. Chloe purred gently. “I love you, Max, I just can’t grasp it properly yet.”

“Then don’t grasp it!”

Chloe knew she didn’t need to answer again. All she had to do was to be, exist, together with Max. It sounded feasible, possible, Chloe believed she could do that. Everything else would work out somehow.

“I love you, too, Chloe!”

A kiss landed on the small chest under Chloe’s head, then she closed her eyes.

_Yeah, I think we can just be for now._

**Author's Note:**

> Been a while, but I'm back to these lands. I hope you enjoyed the little ride that was my humble fic. 
> 
> Thanks to [Randy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Randy_sensei) for the beta.


End file.
